Bilbao – the humans strike back

11/22/2005 – Round two was quite the opposite of the first traumatic encounter between man and machine in Bilbao. This time the humans had good positions on all boards. Two were turned into sure draws, while in the third Ruslan Ponomariov blundered against Fritz, and then pulled a miracle comeback when the computer returned the favour.

II People vs Computers World Chess Team Match

Bilbao 20-23 November 2005

Mankind strikes back!

Round 2 report by Arbiter David Levy

What an amazing day. Early in the session it looked as though the human players
might reverse the score of yesterday, taking advantage of having the white pieces
on all three boards. Khalifman achieved a very slight edge from the opening,
Kasimzhanov secured a bigger advantage against Junior’s Sicilian Defence,
and Ponomariov was a pawn up after only six moves when Fritz unwisely decided
to sacrifice in return for a few tempi in development.

The three humans, all former world champions: Rustam Kasimdzhanov,
Alexander Khalifman, Ruslan Ponomariov

The Ponomariov-Fritz game was a real see-saw. Fritz had not understood, when
sacrificing its b7 pawn, that it was playing just the type of position in which
tempi do NOT provide adequate compensation for a pawn. As a result, Ponomariov
soon appeared to be consolidating his extra material without much difficulty,
and it seemed as though converting this into a win was “only a matter
of technique”, as they say. And as the game wore on, the score indicator
on Fritz’ monitor was uniformly red, indicating that the program was consistently
unhappy with its position.

The key game in round two: Ponomariov vs Fritz, operated by Mathias Feist

But then something extremely bizarre happened. Ponomariov advanced his g-pawn
from g2 to g4, attacking Fritz’ queen and believing that the queen had
to move away to safety, in which case the GM’s position would have been
overwhelming. But as the pawn reached g4 Ponomariov froze, his hand still on
the piece for a full fifteen seconds or more. What he had suddenly remembered,
to his horror, was that Fritz’ pawn on h4 could capture en passant –
the former World Champion had simply forgotten one of the rules relating to
how the pieces move. But having touched the g-pawn there was nothing to be done.
He could of course have retreated it a square to g3, but with the same result.

Blundered with the g-pawn: 2002 world champion Ruslan Ponomariov

Fritz expressed great delight in making the en passant capture by suddenly
changing the colour of the score bar on the monitor, from a long red line to
a long green one – Fritz’ method of saying to the world “Don’t
I have a great position”. At that moment Ponomariov wanted to resign.
But somehow he kept his composure and struggled on for a few moves, his position
collapsing around him both on the K-side, with the incursion of Fritz’
queen, and on the opposite flank, when Fritz’ rook cashed the white c-pawn,
opening the c-file which it now controlled.

The spectators were expecting Ponomariov to capitulate at any moment, but then
fate took a hand in the proceedings. Fritz found a move, 39…Bc2, which
was clearly winning but for one thing, it actually lost! This is one of the
fascinations of computer chess. When you play through this game, take a look
at the forced sequence commencing with Fritz’ …Bc2, and count how
many ply there are from there to the position when Matthias Feist resigned on
Fritz’ behalf. Then add a few more ply because, in the final position,
although Black will inevitably be saddled with a decisive material deficit,
at that moment the program still had two minor pieces for a rook. So the depth
to which Fritz would have needed to search in the critical variation, in order
to realise that …Bc2 was a losing move rather than a winning one, was
quite beyond the program’s capability.

After the game Ruslan told us that he had always known that he could hypnotize
human opponents. "But I am very surprised and didn't know that I could
also hypnotize computers!" he said.

Alexander Khalifman vs Hydra, operated by Ulf Lorenz: ½-½

While all this high drama was unfolding, neither Khalifman nor Kasimzhanov
were able to see their advantages grow, so those two games were drawn. With
the programs’ lead cut from 3 points to 2, and with the grandmasters demonstrating
most emphatically that they are not feeling devastated as a result of yesterday’s
drumming, there is still everything to play for.

See also

11/24/2005 – All three games in the final round of the People vs Computers match in Bilbao ended in three exciting draws. Except for the Deep Junior vs Ponomariov game, which had everyone bored to tears, until Junior suddenly tried to win and almost lost to the former world champion. Report and games.Discuss

11/23/2005 – In round three of the People vs Computers match in the Basque city of Bilbao the computers all had white – and came close to giving the humans another 3-0 whitewash. Only Rustam Kasimdzhanov was able to save a grace draw for the three world champions in this event. Report and games.Discuss

Discuss

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